In my mind, I flew up like a turkey buzzard to circle above the hills and valleys, looking at them with a new eye. “But why not come down to meet us?”

I was really asking Larkin, though I looked at Cate, who said, “Would you want to traipse down a slope you used to know, tree by tree, brook by brook, that’s someone else’s now?”

I felt bad about that—the idea that I had taken something that didn’t belong to me—but I had no good answer.

Larkin stood by, watching us. I read a little bit of sorry in his eyes.

“But that’s not your fault,” Cate said, sighing. “So let’s let that be. Did you find some honey?”

“I’m not sure find is the right word. More like, did I manage to collect it even though I got stung and some bees died and the rest of them will probably starve to death now.”

She seemed to like that. “Spunk,” she said, nodding. But then her face changed. “I am sorry about the bees. But I need their honey as much as they do.”

“Why do you need honey?” Larkin asked her. “For your tea?”

As if she would have sent a stranger to get honey for sweetness alone. To ruin a hive for such a small reason. And I hoped this boy wasn’t the kind of person who needed to be told everything.

“I hurt my leg,” she said. “It’s festering.”

He frowned at her. “You said you were sick. Why didn’t you tell me about your leg?”

“I just did. And the flies have been talking about it all along.”

“I thought they were just spring-waking.”

“And you didn’t want to say ‘Why is your cabin full of flies?’” She sighed tiredly. “Such a lad. Such manners. Now you can help her with the rest of it.”

Larkin turned to me. “What’s your name?”

Cate made a face. “Oh, mercy. Where are my manners?”

Again, talk of manners. So odd in this rough place.

“My name is Ellie.” Which he had to know. Had to have heard my mother calling me through the trees.

Larkin nodded. Almost bowed a little. If he’d had a hat, he might have doffed it. More good manners.

“I’ll help you with the honey,” he said, his face serious.

“You’d better have a look first.” Cate plucked at the edge of the blanket that covered her legs. “It’s going to be a terrible business.”

Larkin lifted the blanket away and gasped at the sight of the maggots churning and rolling on the wound. A smell rose from it.

“Oh,” he said. It was part groan, as if he were the one who was hurt. And I knew, from that sound alone, that he was not one of those people who needed to be told everything.

Chapter Twenty-Nine